Trust Me
by shippershape
Summary: After Cameron wakes up he has a hard time adjusting. One ink-splosion and a lot of yelling later, Kirsten is surprisingly understanding.


A lot has changed since the incident. For one thing, Cameron's friends now have a tendency to hover around him like moths to a porch light. At this moment, Camille is sitting almost exactly two feet to his right and Linus is sitting across from him. They're both occupied with the briefing packets in front of them, but every few seconds their eyes stray from the pages to burn holes in the side of his head. It gets on his nerves, but so do a lot of things these days. Kirsten is giving him space today, which is new for her, because she's generally the worst hover-er of them all. But now she's sitting in the corner, eyes focused exclusively on the report in her lap. He sighs.

"Would you guys stop staring at me?" He mutters, not looking up from his own report. They jump a little, like maybe they thought he wouldn't notice, and Linus clears his throat.

"We're not-"

"You are. And I get it, but I'm fine. Just because I've got some minor memory loss doesn't mean that I'm going to fall apart. I haven't forgotten the important stuff. So you can stop with the hovering, and the phone calls, and the showing up at my door three times a day. I'm fine." He doesn't sound fine, even he knows that. He sounds terse, and irritable, and not at all like himself. Cheerful Cameron. That's what people used to call him. He doubts anyone calls him that anymore.

Linus huffs, but lets his eyes drop back to the page, Camille shrugs, and Kirsten ignores the entire conversation.

"I mean," Cameron continues, because now that he's thinking about it he's gotten a little worked up. "Yes, it's frustrating." He violently circles a sentence on the page in front of him, the anger that he's been repressing for weeks bubbling to the surface. "Sure, I'd like to be able to do my job without constantly worrying I've forgotten something. And yeah, it's going to be hard to explain to my sister that I forgot her birthday without actually explaining anything because this job is totally classified. I might not know how I take my coffee, or what my favourite colour is, or where I hid the spare key that I've been looking for ever since I woke up, but I. AM. FINE!" He shouts, finishing by throwing down his pen so hard it splits open against the table and showers both him and Kirsten in ink. He gapes, staring at the mess in front of him, and slowly turns to the blue splattered blonde beside him.

Linus and Camille are silent, waiting.

"I-I'm so-" Cameron stammers, holding up his hands in surrender.

Kirsten doesn't even look up, just wipes a patch of ink away from her eyes, smearing a blue line across her cheek.

"Green." She says.

"Right, I'm-wait what?" He stares at her. She sets her papers down, looking up at him. Her face now resembles a Rorschach painting, but he doesn't see the anger he expects.

"Your favourite colour is green." She informs him, getting to her feet. "You take your coffee with cream and sugar, and Mexican cocoa when you can get your hands on it, but you're actually more of a tea guy. And you stuck your spare key in that loose piece of your doorframe that was always wiggling when you pull on the handle."

She's looking at him, face soft despite the fact that it's mottled with blue ink, and the anger and the frustration that he's been battling with all day begins to ebb away.

"You…" He's lost for words. Never in a million years would he have imagined Kirsten paid that kind of attention to him, to his life. But it all sounds familiar, it all sounds right, and he looks down at the dark green shirt he's wearing, now covered in stains, and he doesn't know what to say.

"Come on." She presses her hands against his back, pushing him toward the door. She ignores the raised eyebrows from the other couple in the room who were somehow miraculously spared by the broken pen. "Let's get cleaned up."

He glances back at the mess on the table. Camille follows his eye line, and jumps to her feet.

"This is fine." Camille says, beginning to pile the ruined documents into a box. "We've got this, you go."

He gets the feeling they're only doing this because they're afraid he'll blow up again, but this time he doesn't care so much. He lets Kirsten push him out of the room, and they make their way toward the bathroom.

"I'm sorry." He mutters, because she's being awfully nice about the fact that he hulked out and splashed her with navy blue. She eyes him thoughtfully.

"Cameron… I'm used to being the unpredictable one. I get it."

But she hasn't been so unpredictable, not since the incident. If anything she's the most predictable of them all, always off to the side, always within arm's reach of him. He doesn't mind the hovering so much when she does it, maybe because he's in love with her, but she also seems to make an effort to make it less obvious that she's looking out for him. He's never actually told her that he appreciates it.

"I'm just…"

"Frustrated." She finishes, smirking. "Yeah, I got that." He offers her a wry smile.

"I was never athletic, or popular, or cool, but I was always smart. Without my brain, I've got nothing. And there are holes in my memory, things that haven't come back yet." He runs his hand through his hair, inadvertently streaking it blue.

"You've still got your brain, Cameron." Kirsten frowns at him. "Your memories are coming back, the doctor said sometimes it takes a while but that's normal. You need to stop beating yourself up, because _this-_ " She gestures at their matching blue spots. "Isn't going to help."

"Thanks Dr. Phil." He grumbles, not at all sure why he's being mean to her. She rolls her eyes as they come up to the bathroom door. "I'm not...I used to be an asset to the team." He knows he sounds whiney, but he can't seem to help himself. Once he let the first ripple of frustration out, it became impossible to stop.

"Hey." Kirsten grabs him by the shoulders, face stern. "Do you really think I would climb into that Fishtank and let you drive me around some dead guy's brain if I didn't think you were up to it?"

He blinks.

"No, probably not." He sighs, shoulders slouching as the tension leaves them.

"Probably not." She agrees with him. "Look, I have faith in you, okay? I'm getting that patience isn't really your specialty but you just have to give it time. Cut yourself some slack."

He musters a smile, and finds that the longer he looks at her, the more genuine it becomes. She has a smattering of blue freckles now, and one long smudge across her cheekbone, and it's amazing how beautiful she looks even like this. Maybe especially like this.

"It doesn't feel like I'll ever get back to normal." He admits. "I don't…feel like myself sometimes. I mean you saw me lose it in there. Look at us."

She does, sweeping her eyes over their ruined clothes. The corners of her mouth turn up.

"Maybe now it's your turn to trust me, then." Her brown eyes search his, gentle but intense. "You're going to be okay, Cameron. I promise."

A hazy memory flashes through his mind, a hospital bed, a little girl. Kirsten's promise sounds familiar, but he can't place it. He believes her though, can't seem to help it. She's trusted him through dozens of stitches, through good calls and bad ones, and she's right, it's time he return the favour.

"Alright." He nods. "Thank you."

She gives him another push, right up to the bathroom door.

"Get cleaned up." She instructs him. He salutes.

"Yes Ma'am."

As he steps through the door, he turns his head, glancing at her.

"I'll be here, Cameron. I'll always be here." She promises.

And she is.


End file.
